Beyond that wish; all these now cancel must, As if not writ in faith, but words and dust. Yet witness those clear vows which lovers make ; Witness the chaste desires that never brake Into unruly hearts; witness that breast Which in thy bosom anchor'd his whole rest; 'Tis no default in us, dare acquite
Thy maiden faith, thy purpose fair and white As thy pure self. Cross planets did envy Us to each other, and Heav'n did untie
Faster than vows could bind- **
Dislodged from their haunts, we must in tears Unwind a love, knit up in many years; In this last kiss I here surrender thee Back to thyself; so thou again art free. Thou, in another, sad as that, re-send The truest heart that lover e'er did lend. Now turn from each: so fare our sever❜d hearts, As the divorced soul from her body parts.
THE BREAK OF DAY.
STAY, oh sweet! and do not rise: The light that shines comes from thine eyes; The day breaks not-it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay, or else my joys will die, And perish in their infancy.
'Tis true, 'tis day—what though it be? O wilt thou therefore rise from me? Why should we rise because 'tis light? Did we lie down because 'twas night?
Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither, Should, in despite of light, keep us together.
Light hath no tongue, but is all eye; If it could speak as well as spy, This were the worst that it could say, That, being well, I fain would stay, And that I loved my heart and honour so, That I would not from her that had them go.
Must business thee from hence remove? O, that's the worst disease of love! The poor, the foul, the false, love can Admit, but not the busy man.
He which hath business, and makes love, doth do Such wrong as when a married man doth woo.
TO PERSUADE HER FROM FOLLOWING HIM ABROAD IN THE DISGUISE OF A PAGE.
By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires, which thereof did ensue,
By our long striving hopes, by that remorse, Which my words' masculine persuasive force Begot in thee, and by the memory
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me,
I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath, By all pains, which want and divorcement hath, I conjure thee; and all the oaths, which I And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy, I here unswear, and overswear them thus ; Thou shalt not love by means so dangerous. Temper, O fair love! love's impetuous rage, Be my true mistress, not my feigned page; I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind Thirst to come back; O, if thou die before, My soul from other lands to thee shall soar; Thy (else almighty) beauty cannot move
Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love, Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness; thou hast read How roughly he in pieces shivered
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd. Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have prov'd Dangers unurg'd: feed on this flattery, That absent lovers one in th' other be. Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change Thy body's habit, nor mind; be not strange To thyself only. All will spy in thy face A blushing womanly discovering grace.
Richly cloth'd apes are call'd apes; and as soon Eclips'd, as bright we call the Moon, the Moon, Men of France, changeable chameleons,
Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions,
Love's fuelers, and th' rightest company Of players, which upon the world's stage be, Will too too quickly know thee.
O, stay here; for, for thee
England is only a worthy gallery,
To walk in expectation, till from thence
Our greatest king call thee to his presence. When I am gone, dream me some happiness, Nor let thy looks our long-hid love confess; Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor bless, nor curse Openly love's force; nor in bed fright thy nurse With midnight's startings, crying out, "Oh! oh! Nurse, O ! my love is slain ; I saw him go O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I, Assail'd, taken, fight, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die." Augur me better chance, except dread Jove Think it enough for me t' have had thy love.
THIS Voluminous writer has found less favour among the critics than his poetical talents and rude integrity entitle him to claim. Withers was a native of Hampshire, studied at Oxford, and entered Lincoln's Inn. The publication of poetical libels on what he conceived public abuses, obtained for him the distinction of prosecution and imprisonment, and converted a thoughtless forward young man into a confirmed and rancorous puritan. The fever which lurked in his blood from this date broke furiously out in the civil wars. He raised a troop of horse for the Parliament; and on the Restoration had his property confiscated in face of the declaration issued by the King before his accession. Withers was again arrested for libels on the government, and, after suffering a long imprisonment, he died in the Tower. He seems to have been
a thorough partisan, a man of more zeal than discretion, and to have enjoyed a broil on very disinterested principles.
THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE MUSE.
SHE doth tell me where to borrow Comfort in the midst of sorrow; Makes the desolatest place To her presence be a grace, And the blackest discontents Be her fairest ornaments. In my former days of bliss, His divine skill taught me this, That from every thing I saw, I could some invention draw; And raise pleasure to her height Through the meanest object's sight: By the murmur of a spring, Or the least bough's rustling; By a daisy, whose leaves spread, Shut when Titan goes to bed; Or a shady bush or tree, She could more infuse in me, Than all Nature's beauties can, In some other wiser man. By her help I also now Make this churlish place allow Some things that may sweeten gladness In the very gall of sadness:
The dull loneness, the black shade
That these hanging vaults have made,
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